Your Right to Know

A group seeking to reduce Democrats’ power in Columbus politics appears to have gathered enough
signatures to put a campaign-finance-reform initiative before voters next year.

The Columbus Coalition for Responsive Government wants voters to approve public financing for
Columbus City Council and mayoral candidates who agree to limits on their campaign spending.

The coalition wants the city charter changed so that council candidates who agree to spend no
more than $85,000 and mayoral candidates who agree to spend no more than $350,000 would be eligible
for a share of $300,000 in casino-tax revenue to help their campaigns.

“This would allow everyone on the ballot a fair amount of funding to get their campaign message
across the city,” said Jonathan Beard, president of the coalition.

Although it is not official, the Franklin County Board of Elections said it has validated nearly
9,300 of the 22,800 signatures gathered by the coalition.

The group needed about 4,300 signatures of registered voters, or 5 percent of the total votes
cast in the Nov. 5 election. It’s likely the issue will be on the ballot in May, although the city
council will vote on the date.

“We still need to certify the total votes cast in the most-recent election, so it is not
official yet,” said Ben Piscitelli, spokesman for the board of elections.

Council members have declined to comment, pending certification by the board of elections, but
nearly all have signaled that they do not support the ballot initiative.

Three Democratic incumbents raised a combined $67,000 after the May primary, but they also
benefited from a total of more than $200,000 worth of in-kind contributions from council President
Andrew J. Ginther.

Their Republican challengers raised a combined $6,600 in that same time and could have claimed
public money had the proposal been in place.

In the 2011 mayor’s race, challenger Earl Smith, a Republican who spent about $10,000, could
have claimed public money had the proposal been in place. Mayor Michael B. Coleman, a Democrat,
spent more than $900,000 on his re-election bid that year.

Last year, the Coalition for Responsive Government failed to make the ballot with an initiative
to elect seven council members from wards and four at large. The elections board said that the
group collected fewer than half the signatures required for that initiative, and that paid
collectors appeared to have turned in fraudulent signatures.